Frustrated by a lack of informed and honest review websites covering a wide range of electronic music, I write them myself.

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

System 7 - Point 3 - Fire Album

Butterfly Records/A-Wave: 1994/2003

See, Point 3 makes good sense as the title of System 7’s third LP; threes, and all that. Except Point 3 wasn’t their third LP, but rather a split concept LP into two albums, Fire and Water. Point 3 – Fire Album is their official third, what with most tracks on Point 3 – Water Album credited as remixes. What, the option of ‘bonus ambient reinterpretation’ disc wasn’t available? That didn’t stop Astralwerks from doing the deed for Stateside distribution. Also, as the band still had to use the moniker 777, the double-LP was titled System 7.3 Fire + Water, clearing up the Point 3 pun if you didn’t get it originally. Yet, because this was only the second album released in the Americas, the ‘.3’ pun is- No, I must stop reiterating these convoluted release points! My mind cannot take the chaos!

*ahem*

Their debut album got them chummy with club culture, and 777 found Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy growing into their distinctive techno-trance space-rock hybrid. Point 3, however, is where their reputation as a collaborative supergroup truly cemented. Not that System 7 didn’t have all-star pairings either, but the sense was they were simply hooking up with folks that The Orb palled about with. Fair enough, as it was Alex Paterson that Hillage first connected with. And those associates persist into Point 3 as well, with Youth (Martin Glover) returning for a pair of songs: goa trance on Gliding On Duo-Tone Curves (with Total Eclipse and Juno Reactor in keyboard support, OMG!), and a meditative tribal-dub excursion into trippy world music on Dr. Livingston I Presume. The latter sounds more like a Youth production, something he might have done with Greg Hunter for Dub Trees. Right, Mr. Hunter was lending an engineering hand with the last couple System 7 albums too. Forever production pals!

But we expect that of System 7 anyway. No, it’s the pairings with techno legends that always gets the talk of Techno Town with this group, and for good reason. The Derrick May collaborations Altitude and Fractal Liaison were the most interesting cuts off their debut, and Mr. May brings his Detroit sensibility back for a couple more future-funk tunes in Mysterious Traveller and Overview. Seems like System 7’s dragging him to their trance-trippin’ realm though, both tracks quite out there in the cosmos. Fear not, all ye’ techno stalwarts, for a Frenchman in Laurent Garnier has shown up, opening Point 3 with Sirènes, sounding more like Garnier with Hillage guitar in support. There’s also Batukau, which you might remember in a remixed form on Garnier’s Early Works collection.

Additional names here are The Drum Club (Lol Hammond and Charlie May) on Jupiter!, providing Hillage's guitar the sort of thumping techno track Spiral Tribe alum would do. All this, plus System 7’s own pounding Coltrane (Fire Mix) and tranced-out Alpha Wave (Gliss Mix) makes for a remarkably varied album, with something both techno and trance heads can enjoy.